Deuteronomy 4:15–16 “You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape” (NIV). Observation: Moses...

Galatians 2:2 “I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain” (NIV). Observation: Paul had first felt released to preach years earlier and was confident in his effectiveness because his reputation...

Deuteronomy 3:28 “But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see” (NIV). Observation: Moses has asked the Lord for permission to cross the Jordan into the Promised...

Deuteronomy 2:25 “This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you” (NIV). Observation: Forty years of desert wandering had come to an end. It...

Mark 5:40 “But they laughed at Him” (NIV). Observation: Jairus, an administrator of the local synagogue, had asked Jesus to lay hands on his dying twelve-year-old daughter. Meanwhile at the house mournful wails accompanying death had already begun. Jesus and Jairus...

Galatians 1:24 “And they praised God because of me” (NIV). Observation: In this opening chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he said he was “astonished” (Gal. 1:6) that people he had only recently had a hand in bringing to Christ are so readily abandoning the...

Deuteronomy 2:5 “Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on” (NIV). Observation: Israel had begun their desert wanderings under God’s specific direction. In Deuteronomy 2:4, He had said they were about to...

Deuteronomy 1:31 “There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son” (NIV). Observation: At the edge of the Promised Land, Moses began summarizing the reasons for the Israelites’ long desert exile…until everyone in the previous generation...

Deuteronomy 1:3 “Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded concerning them” (NIV). Observation: Forty years of wandering in the desert had ended, and Moses was proclaiming God’s precepts to the Israelites. Key enemies had been defeated, and it...

1 Corinthians 13:3 “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (NIV). Observation: Paul opened the chapter by saying, “Now I will show you the most excellent way,” and in the first three verses he...